Diocesan News
With the growing urgency of Climate Change, the landmark “Manifesto of the Churches of the Global South for Our Common home: Towards Peace with Creation – An Urgent call for a Just transition beyond Fossil Fuels” was signed by the heads of the Bishops’ conferences of Africa, Asia, Europe, Oceania and Latin America and the Caribbean on March 16, 2026. This manifesto, inspired by Laudato Si, advocates for the adoption of an international treaty that halts fossil fuel (coal, oil, gas) expansion and advance toward a just energy transition.
This manifesto translates Integral Ecology from philosophy into action, incorporating social justice for the most vulnerable communities, for women, who are often in the front lines of environmental impacts in poorer countries. It asserts that energy transition must protect employment, energy access and the wellbeing of families.
It proposes a roadmap for energy transition, and provides a precursor, in April 2026 to the First Conference on Transitioning away from Fossil Fuels in Santa Marta, Columbia. This is the first of a ‘series of conferences’ to develop a fossil fuel treaty. Because fossil fuel production is structurally embedded in global markets, financial systems and geopolitics, coordinated international cooperation, grounded in equity and justice is essential. A second conference will be hosted by Tuvalu in the Pacific within a year.
Vanuatu was the first nation to call for a Fossil Fuel Non Proliferation Treaty (FFNPT) to address the climate crisis, joined soon after by Tuvalu to endorse the initiative at COP27 in 2022, other pacific nations have joined the call for a treaty.
The manifesto warns that the ecological crisis has reached a critical point. “We recognise, with sorrow and urgency, that the world that shelters us is collapsing and may be nearing breaking point” the document states.
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Sandra Dillon
